LOVELAND, Colo.—Corby Haworth smiles from the pages of the 1974 Berthoud High School yearbook—an 18-year-old her sister describes as full of intelligence and plans. “If we had the chance to do it over again, would we, could we?” reads the quote under her senior portrait.
Pat Haworth believes her older sister Corby would do everything differently if given the chance.
She would follow through on her plans for a career in data processing or even her dream to be a veterinarian.
She wouldn’t give in to the temptations of drugs and alcohol.
And maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t end up dead at 52, both eyes blackened and her entire body discolored with black bruises.
“I could never help her in life,” Pat said. “I tried and tried. I prayed for her, but I couldn’t help.
“The least I can do is help her in her death. I won’t let this go.”
Corby Haworth died July 7, 2008, at Longmont United Hospital from blunt force trauma—a death that, while suspicious, has never been solved or even fully explained.
That question mark looms large for Pat, for some investigators and even in black and white on Corby’s death certificate, which describes her manner of death as “undetermined.”
“She was a fixture in Berthoud,” said Pat, who believes her sister was beaten to death and that the police dropped the ball.
“She lived all her life here, and she died here, and it’s been let go.”
The Berthoud native worked at the Wayside Inn from 1972 until 2005.
She never left the small town in which she was born, lived and died.
“She wanted to be liked,” said Pat, explaining that Corby struggled with her weight. “She wanted a boyfriend. She wanted to be beautiful. I think she really wanted to get out of Berthoud, get out of the Wayside Inn and have a real career, but she never did.
“Instead of dealing with that, she self-medicated. … She used drugs and alcohol as an aid to kill the pain.”
Corby turned to alcohol, marijuana and even harder drugs, never outgrowing the partying lifestyle she grew up with in small-town Berthoud in the 1970s.
Corby did grow away from her family and her old friends over the years, living a lifestyle that took its toll on her body and running with a new crowd.
It was with those friends that Corby spent the Fourth of July weekend in 2008—the last party of her life.
When Corby walked away from an Independence Day party on Friday, July 4, 2008, she was drunk but not bruised, investigators say.
No one can seem to pinpoint how she got home to the house she rented on 10th Street. Did she walk? Did someone give her a ride?
And no one has been able to fully explain how she became bruised from head to toe. The next day, however, she was one solid bruise.
But she didn’t go to the hospital or seek help until three days later, even though friends and witnesses later told investigators she was badly bruised July 5.
Monday, July 7, 2008, Corby called her roommate at work and asked him to call an ambulance because she had fallen.
He did, and medics rushed her to Longmont United Hospital, where she died before her family could make it to the emergency room.
“I think it was either a drug deal gone bad or a fit of rage in a drunken stupor,” said Pat. “I don’t believe anyone set out to kill her; it just happened that way.”
Describing Corby as a “solid bruise” is not an exaggeration. Her head, chest, both arms, elbows and hands, her buttocks, her knees were black and blue, according to an autopsy report.
One breast was filled with blood.
Corby had two black eyes, a cut lip, and the bruises on her buttocks looked like shoe prints, said Dr. James Wilkerson, the medical examiner who conducted her autopsy.
“I’ve always thought somebody beat her up,” Wilkerson said.
Yet she told friends and even the medics who rushed her to the hospital that she had fallen.
Wilkerson doesn’t buy that explanation.
Had she fallen, he believes, the bruises would have been in one area or limited to one side of her body.
“Could she have been so drunk she fell and rolled around?” said Wilkerson.
“Her injuries, to me, look like somebody beat her up.”
But without more information or evidence, he could not say beyond a reasonable doubt that Corby was killed.
So he ruled her death “undetermined.”
Assistant District Attorney Cliff Riedel also came up against what he could prove.
The prosecutor declined last month to file charges in the death because evidence did not clearly point to any one person or even clearly reveal how she died.
She told several people she fell at least twice.
She had been unsteady on her feet.
And a lifetime of alcohol abuse, her associated medical conditions and prescription medication could have caused her to bruise easily and her blood not to clot, explained Riedel and Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent in charge Greg Sadar.
“There’s certainly things that raise suspicion,” said Riedel. “You could look at those (autopsy) pictures, and you say, ‘Geez,’ but proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that’s a high standard.”
While Wilkerson and Pat Haworth believe Corby was beaten, Sadar does not.
“It’s certainly very sad, but at this point, we don’t see any evidence that somebody committed a crime,” Sadar said. “In this particular case, the best I can tell you is it looks like a very sad, tragic accident. … It’s difficult for a lot of folks to reconcile tragic accidents, but that doesn’t mean foul play.”
Pat Haworth believes local investigators simply wrote the death off as an accident and did not try hard enough or quickly enough to find out what really happened.
Both Sadar and Berthoud Police Chief Glenn Johnson said that is simply not true.
They say investigators were diligent but did not find the answers Corby’s family is seeking.
Johnson declined to say what he believes happened and remains tightlipped about the specifics of the case because, after all, it still is being investigated.
The chief said he hopes to have new information soon.
Both Pat and Wilkerson hope that happens.
They both hope someone will come forward with information to prove how Corby Haworth met her death.
Pat is sure someone out there knows what happened and could help put the questions to rest for her family.
New information could mean a new decision on charges, but for now, Corby’s death remains a mystery.
Her sister, though, will keep pushing investigators to find justice and peace.
The sisters and their mom, Avis Haworth, spent the day together five days before Corby’s death—the last time they would see her alive.
Pat said they felt close again, and she cherishes that special day, which ended all too soon.
“She said, ‘I love you,'” Pat recalled, wiping tears from her eyes.
“I said, ‘I love you, Corb,’ and we dropped her off.”
